Enlarged in the Waiting
A sermon brought forth from Romans 8:22-27 preached on Sunday, December 12, 2021.
It’s the third Sunday in Advent. We’ve been told that Advent hope is something more than a rumor and that Advent peace goes far beyond wishful thinking—that both have substance to them and are bigger than our conventional notions of them. Thank goodness for that.
There are still some ideas that no Hallmark card can convey. Our culture’s notions of hope, peace, joy, and love strip them of their muscle until all the grit is gone. Once the masses manage to dilute them down to something more palatable, they’re insubstantial, sterilized, delicate, powerless. Then they can fit inside a greeting card envelope. For many, these are nothing more than sentiments or seasonal slogans.
There has emerged a counterfeit version of our faith that’s built around this oozy emotionalism that cannot hold up to scrutiny or adversity, that is not fit to be tried and tested. It’s a weak and watered-down faith-by-mere-appearance-and-indication that I’ve recently dubbed “Hobby Lobbyism.”
Hobby Lobbyism is a serious threat to the Gospel because it often looks and sounds faithful. Hobby Lobbyists even use Jesus-language. But it’s all counterfeit. It doesn’t hold up to adversity—not even nuisance.
I love the GEICO commercial where the instructor yanks the Live. Laugh. Love. sign out of the woman’s hands and throws it in the trashcan. Hope, peace, joy, love—they aren’t cozy words; they’re a means of resistance.
Anything about this season that remains comfortable is not worth giving ourselves to. Real, life-tested, Gospel-worn, Advent-informed hope, peace, joy, and love are battle-worn tools that God wants us to take up because they are the most effective means for pushing back the darkness.
Advent hope, peace, joy, and love are both shield and weapon, our best defense and our strongest offense. We must take up these four agents of Advent because the world is not whole. Nothing is what it was meant to be.
A few words about this third agent, Advent joy. It’s the hardest to understand of the Advent four because we hear so many mixed messages about it. This is what I’ve found: Advent joy is happiness that’s been put to the test and found durable, not hardened or rigid—because things like that not only break, they shatter—but tough, pliable, adaptable, flexible. Or from another angle: Advent joy is equipped happiness. It’s stubborn and resilient.
Joy is happiness that goes to the gym. Joy is happiness that’s been knocked down a few times but always gets back up, brushes itself off, and tries again. Joy is unbreakable happiness. It’s focused, resolved, and determined. It cannot be stolen away by conditions, nor can it be diminished by them.
Pastor and Bible teacher, Warren Wiersbe, took a few stabs at it. He said joy is that “inward peace and sufficiency that is not affected by outward circumstances.” It’s resolute and stubborn and enlarged in the waiting.
Throughout his ministry, the Apostle Paul exemplified Gospel joy better than anyone. Though he was beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned, laughed at, and at every turn encountered another threat to his life, he was still joyful.
In his second letter to the Christ-followers in Corinth, he said that he was “full of sorrow and yet rejoicing.” Later in the same letter, he wrote
“In all my affliction, I am overflowing with joy.”
Joy is a perpetual gladness of the heart that comes from knowing, experiencing, and trusting Jesus. It’s an expression of a victor in the midst of strife. Paul was contented, even in shackles. Gospel joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of our lives. It’s the quiet confidence and determined choice to praise God in every situation.
I hope you haven’t forgotten that with the first Sunday in Advent we turned the page on another calendar year. November 28th was our January 1st. I like it that way. No one expects us to turn over a new leaf on the 28th of any month, but that’s what the Christian new year invites. The very first thing the new year brings is anticipation—an active, vigilant waiting. We start the new year by preparing ourselves for Christ’s arrival. In our Advent waiting, we will be enlarged.
These first days of the Christian year are for rearranging and redeveloping because it never fails—every year, we find ourselves unequipped for what’s coming. So, I’ve taken the liberty of preparing Advent kits for you. You will need them. They will prove necessary, vital.
I’d call it a “survival kit,” because, in a way, this set of tools can rescue you. But “survival” is too small a word. What you’ll find inside of these kits can renew your life if (and this is a big if)—if you use them well and for their intended purpose.
Your kit contains five pieces of hardware—I want you to think of them as the necessary equipment for the task ahead of you. Each is well-fashioned, durable, and dependable. Made for daily use. Let’s go through them quickly.
The first piece of equipment in your Advent kit is hope. Advent hope is gutsy and realistic. It knows failure and longing, but it also knows that those failures and longings are precious and holy. Advent hope knows disappointments, but it walks straight through them. We only have hope when we choose to patiently endure now because we know there will be a then, and that somewhere deep-down God isn’t done with us yet. Hope grows stronger in the waiting.
The second implement in your Advent kit is peace. Biblical peace means wholeness, completeness. It comes from a Hebrew word we know: Shalom. It happens when what’s broken about us or between us is put back together again. Striving for wholeness takes guts and patience. Broken things don’t put themselves back together. That takes work and a great amount of care.
Now, this one you’ll need to reach deep inside your Advent kit to find. Joy. Biblical joy is a by-product of a life with God. It’s not a feeling but a perspective we adopt that’s more constant and enduring than adverse circumstances. It’s not an easy tool to master—in fact, many make the mistake of holding onto it too tightly, and it slips out of their hands.
The fourth piece of Advent gear is love. It’s the greatest of the four, only to be outdone by the fifth. Love, if we’re going to understand it in any way close to how God does, is an act of the will. We love our neighbors by working for their well-being, even if it means sacrificing our own well-being in the process.
There are too many who try to use love to accomplish their own ends, then they wonder why it breaks. The last and most important in your Advent kit is Christ, the Center and Origin of the first four. In Him is cast their perfect image. In Christ, we find our way, our truth, and our life. He came close to confront us, comfort us, and wake us up to what it means to really live in response to God. On the cross, He showed what it means to live completely. Living completely means to love, even if it does us in. In Christ, because of Christ, heaven keeps invading earth. Earth itself, and we upon it, are enlarged as we wait for more of heaven to arrive among us. We are not diminished in our waiting. We are enlarged in the waiting.
There’s one important thing you need to know about these Advent instruments. Gospel hope, peace, joy, love—they’ve been forged in the fire of sacrifice. Their impurities have been burnt away in a crucible. They were then thrown into a forge, stamped, hammered out; forged again; then heat-treated. After they were cast into Christ-form, they were tempered and Holy Spirit-quenched.
All four—hope, peace, joy, and love—if they’re the real thing, have been tested for impurities. They will survive the furnace. In that furnace, their weaknesses have been exposed and burned away. Their weaknesses exposed. Repeatedly. Gospel hope, peace, joy, and love are what remain after the dross is removed.
One thing to keep in mind: it will take time, care, and intention to cultivate each of these into what they’re worth.
And what of the fifth one: Christ? He’s already been tried and tested, and He’s been found worthy. Keep these five close as you walk along your Advent way.…and don’t try to find this Advent kit at Hobby Lobby. They’ve never carried it.
All praises to the One who made it all and finds it beautiful! Alleluia! Amen.